Red Planet (2000)

November 10, 2000

FILM REVIEW; Finding the Terra Not So Firma on Mars

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Published: November 10, 2000

Pity the poor planet Mars. With the arrival of ''Red Planet,'' the most formidable frontier of traditional science fiction has now been dumped on by Hollywood three times in a row. First came Tim Burton's puerile comic misfire ''Mars Attacks!'' Then there was Brian De Palma's sappy ''Mission to Mars.'' And now here's ''Red Planet,'' a leaden, skimpily plotted space-age Outward Bound adventure with vague allegorical aspirations that remain entirely unrealized. If this sort of thing keeps up, nobody's going to want to go there anymore.

The film, directed by Antony Hoffman, could be a textbook case of a potential blockbuster hopelessly intimidated by its own technology and boxed in by tired formulas. At least the movie looks good. Its spacecraft is an Architectural Digest-worthy technoscape of sleek blue tunnels and blinking lights; the planet Mars is a majestic desolate landscape of reddish rock under a glowing orange sky.

But the human characters are so crowded out by computer voices croaking robotic mumbo-jumbo and by flashy special effects that they remain sketchy even by comic book standards. What human speech manages to break through the tedious, impenetrable jargon is so compressed and weighted with exposition that it feels more like notes for an outline than actual conversation.

This is all the more unfortunate because the kernel of the story holds out some promise. Fifty years hence, the Earth is on the verge of becoming uninhabitable from pollution. One sign of its imminent demise (a sly reference to ''Magnolia''?) is that all the frogs have died. The only way the human race can save itself is to colonize Mars. To do so, scientists have undertaken the Mars Terraforming Project, an attempt to create a habitable atmosphere there based on the proliferation of oxygen-producing blue-green algae. But a project that began promisingly has mysteriously malfunctioned. An emergency mission commanded by Kate Bowman (Carrie-Ann Moss) is dispatched to discover and correct what went wrong.

From its opening moments, when Bowman drones out the story's basic setup in a flat, listless voiceover, ''Red Planet'' seems trapped in an aura of pseudoseriousness utterly unleavened by wit. As the crew members are laboriously introduced, they turn out to be the same old cross-section of sci-fi personality types (minus any African-Americans or Asians). Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), the lead scientist, doesn't believe in God and jokes about becoming Mars's new ''king,'' while Chantilas (Terence Stamp), an insufferably pompous seeker of truth, prates on and on (and on!) about things like finding the name of God under a rock. Thankfully, he is the first to be dispatched.

Bowman's co-pilot, Santen (Benjamin Bratt), is the resident bully and tough guy, and its agricultural specialist, Pettingill (Simon Baker), its designated coward and sneak. At the bottom of the pecking order (but not there for long) is the crew's chipper engineer and self-professed ''space janitor,'' Gallagher (Val Kilmer), who has eyes for Bowman and an obsession with the Rolling Stones' ''19th Nervous Breakdown,'' which he sings to himself in moments of stress. It is Gallagher who, near the end of the film, gets to deliver the closest thing to a spiritual revelation: ''I saw Elvis.''

Two of these characters quickly disappear, and the rest spend much of the movie trudging across the Martian desert trying to figure out what happened. The algae that had been growing on the planet's surface is nowhere to be found. When they reach the habitat that was designed to house them safely for two years, they find it in ruins. The source of that destruction, when it appears, is certainly scary (think ''Alien''), but the movie doesn't allow these famished marauders nearly enough screen time to creep us out.

Now and then, ''Red Planet'' comes up with a zesty image. When the search party makes its emergency landing in a capsule attached to airbag balloons, they endure a terrible jouncing as it rolls down a steep, craggy mountain. In the most sustained dramatic scene, they prepare to die as their space-suit air supply runs out, only to discover in the nick of time that the planet inexplicably has breathable air.

The most ingenious touch is their betrayal by a helpful all-purpose robot, AMEE (which they affectionately address as ''sweetie''), after it is damaged in the landing. The device, which sprouts its own radar-equipped mini-helicopter, becomes their deadly enemy. The notion of an R2D2-like sidekick viciously attacking its creators is a nifty way of turning ''Star Wars'' mythology on its ear.

Such moments, however, are few and far between. What the story eventually boils down to is almost a reprise of the scenario of the far more chilling and effective sci-fi horror film ''Pitch Black.'' In a beat-the-clock race to leave Mars and its orbit, Bowman, trapped aboard the master craft when it is damaged by a solar flare, makes emergency repairs and tries to locate, then rescue, its rapidly diminishing crew before it runs out of fuel. By the end, of course, only one crew member remains on the planet's surface, and you can guess which one. Think Elvis.

''Red Planet'' is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It includes a glimpse of nudity (from the back) and images that could scare young children.

RED PLANET

Directed by Antony Hoffman; written by Chuck Pfarrer and Jonathan Lemkin, based on a story by Mr. Pfarrer; director of photography, Peter Suschitzky; edited by Robert K. Lambert and Dallas S. Puett; music by Graeme Revell; production designer, Owen Paterson; produced by Mark Canton, Bruce Berman and Jorge Saralegui; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 110 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.